Session 1 - God's Design For Marriage

00:00:00.000 | Dr. Street is a professor of mine.

00:00:03.620 | Many of you know that I've gone back, I'm getting another master's degree in biblical

00:00:06.880 | counseling this time, and Dr. Street's actually the chair of that program out at masters in

00:00:11.520 | Los Angeles.

00:00:12.820 | And he's been a wonderful professor so far, and hopefully this will help me with some

00:00:17.160 | coming classes in the coming months.

00:00:19.560 | Maybe this will give me some brownie points, I don't know if that'll actually work out.

00:00:23.140 | But he's a professor there, department of the chair, and chair for the graduate programs

00:00:27.200 | in biblical counseling at masters university and seminary in Santa Clarita, California.

00:00:32.420 | In addition to this, his ministry there at TMU, he serves as an elder and lay pastor

00:00:36.700 | there at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley.

00:00:40.040 | He's a second generation pastor, giving more than 40 years to pastoral ministry.

00:00:44.480 | He planted a church called Clear Creek Chapel in Springboro, Ohio, where he built a strong

00:00:49.580 | counseling program there as well, and a training center, and he currently serves as the president

00:00:53.840 | of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC.

00:00:57.680 | He's married to Janie, who we've gotten to know through correspondence with all the logistics

00:01:01.820 | for this conference, for 41 years, and they have four children and six grandchildren.

00:01:07.200 | So many of you are probably able to relate with that.

00:01:10.160 | Let me say this, he has a lot of things that he does.

00:01:12.640 | He travels all around the country and teaches, and preaches, and shares in conferences and

00:01:16.300 | all around the world.

00:01:17.560 | But tonight, and tomorrow, and Sunday, he's all ours.

00:01:20.240 | Amen?

00:01:21.240 | He's all ours.

00:01:22.240 | So, brother, why don't you come on up?

00:01:24.520 | - It is a great pleasure to be here.

00:01:25.760 | I've been praying for this for a long time.

00:01:27.360 | Now, I wanna share with you why it's so important for me to be here, because I still have three

00:01:33.720 | grandchildren that are visiting us from New Brunswick, Canada, at our home right now,

00:01:38.280 | and I left them, all right, to come to be with you.

00:01:42.200 | So that shows you.

00:01:44.360 | I didn't realize how good I was at spoiling until I became a grandfather.

00:01:48.600 | I'm gifted at it, I'm really gifted at it.

00:01:51.800 | And I know some of you are wondering, "What is a guy that looks 25 years of age doing

00:01:56.160 | with six grandchildren?"

00:02:00.080 | But we do have six grandchildren, three of them are out there with my wife, and that's

00:02:03.800 | the reason why my wife's not here.

00:02:05.780 | She would normally be here, but she's bidding farewell to those three kids and our daughter

00:02:11.360 | as they go back to Canada.

00:02:13.440 | That's where they live and serve, and serve in a great church there as well.

00:02:17.340 | It's a pleasure to be here at First Baptist, and I know there are a lot of other churches

00:02:20.160 | that are represented here, and so hopefully I'll get a chance to meet some of you and

00:02:24.800 | welcome you as well.

00:02:26.040 | All right, in order to get all of our sessions started, let's begin with a word of prayer

00:02:32.920 | and then we're going to jump right in, okay?

00:02:36.480 | Gracious Father, we would be remiss if we did not ask the Holy Spirit to work in our

00:02:40.440 | lives tonight, and tomorrow, and Sunday.

00:02:46.100 | We can explain what the Word of God says very carefully and clearly, but it really is up

00:02:55.320 | to the work and the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit to work in people's lives to transform

00:03:00.860 | them.

00:03:03.060 | And I would pray, dear Lord, I don't care how good a marriage is or how difficult it

00:03:08.500 | is, that the marriages will be changed for the better as a result of this weekend.

00:03:16.100 | We're going to go to your Word.

00:03:17.620 | It is inspired, it is authoritative, it is superior to anything that man has to offer,

00:03:25.240 | and it is all-sufficient because it reflects the very character of its author, and that

00:03:30.540 | is an all-sufficient God.

00:03:33.860 | And I pray, Father, that as we look into the Word of God and the authority it has in our

00:03:37.940 | lives, that it will transform us and transform our marriages in order to be the type that

00:03:44.140 | would be honoring and pleasing to you.

00:03:47.120 | This we pray in Christ's name, amen.

00:03:52.580 | If you have your Bible with you, if it's electronic version or a dead tree version, which is paper,

00:03:58.100 | all right, take your copy of the Word of God, and we want to go over to Romans chapter 12

00:04:04.380 | to begin with, and I want to nail down a theme verse for this entire weekend.

00:04:10.720 | This is something I want you to think about.

00:04:15.740 | Because when this weekend is over and somebody says to you, "Hey, what'd you do this weekend?"

00:04:20.460 | You can say, "You know, I went to a marriage conference."

00:04:23.740 | "Oh, you did?

00:04:25.900 | Well, what happened there?"

00:04:27.980 | "Well, I want you to be able to say that at that marriage conference, I learned how

00:04:34.920 | to hate more."

00:04:39.780 | I want you to be able to say that.

00:04:42.940 | Romans chapter 12 verse 9, "Let love be genuine, abhor or hate what is evil, hold fast to what

00:04:55.300 | is good."

00:04:56.300 | "I went to a marriage conference this weekend, and I learned how to hate more."

00:05:01.780 | I'm absolutely convinced that in the day and age in which we live, we talk so much about

00:05:08.060 | love, we don't talk enough about hate.

00:05:11.620 | We've got to learn to hate evil.

00:05:14.460 | And at the conclusion of this weekend, I want you to be able to look back upon everything

00:05:19.820 | that we've learned and say, "I've learned to hate those aspects of my life that are

00:05:28.340 | evil, that are sinful.

00:05:31.900 | The wrong attitudes I have, the wrong reactions I have, the wrong words that come out of my

00:05:38.780 | mouth, I've learned to hate those things because I want to cling to that which is good.

00:05:45.220 | I want to love that which is good because I know that this pleases my Lord in heaven."

00:05:53.020 | And that's going to be our theme throughout the weekend.

00:05:56.580 | So when somebody says to you, "What did you do this weekend?

00:05:59.100 | I went to a marriage conference, and I learned how to hate more.

00:06:02.420 | I learned how to hate my own sin more.

00:06:06.820 | That's what I learned to do this weekend."

00:06:10.220 | We don't do that enough.

00:06:11.900 | We coddle our sin.

00:06:13.400 | We feed our sin.

00:06:14.940 | No wonder we get into trouble when that happens.

00:06:17.940 | No wonder there's so much conflict that goes on in marriages because we've allowed these

00:06:22.820 | things to preexist for a long, long time.

00:06:25.460 | Now, in order to set the foundation for everything that we want to do, this session tonight,

00:06:30.600 | we want to talk about God's design for marriage so that we're all on the same page.

00:06:35.860 | God's design for marriage.

00:06:37.140 | This is very important.

00:06:38.460 | Why do I say that it's important?

00:06:40.020 | Well, because there are a lot of different perspectives out there in the world as to

00:06:44.860 | what marriage is supposed to be.

00:06:49.260 | And you begin to realize that there are a lot of marriages that are in trouble.

00:06:57.280 | Maybe you don't know it because they put on a good show on Sunday or around other people,

00:07:03.260 | but those marriages are nevertheless in trouble.

00:07:06.580 | I've been counseling marriages for over 45 years now.

00:07:10.140 | I understand this.

00:07:11.860 | I've sat across the table from dozens upon dozens upon dozens of marriages that were

00:07:18.100 | in struggling, having difficulties, conflicts, seemingly conflicts that people would think

00:07:26.660 | could never be resolved, and yet God brings about a wonderful transformation in those

00:07:31.740 | marriages.

00:07:32.740 | You can do the same thing in your marriage.

00:07:35.500 | Well, what is the origin of problems in marriage?

00:07:39.060 | Well, some of the origin is that many people marry for the wrong reason.

00:07:44.020 | They marry for the wrong reason.

00:07:46.740 | Some people marry because of promiscuity.

00:07:50.220 | They've been promiscuous prior to getting married, and they feel guilty over that, and

00:07:56.740 | they feel that this is what they've got to do.

00:07:59.420 | They need to get married in order to take care of their guilt.

00:08:04.300 | Really that's a very poor reason to get married, and in fact, just because you have a little

00:08:09.200 | piece of paper that says that you're married doesn't mean that you now have the self-discipline

00:08:13.380 | in order to maintain that particular marriage because you didn't have the self-discipline

00:08:17.860 | prior to that to maintain your own purity.

00:08:20.140 | Now you don't have the self-discipline, and you're going into marriage.

00:08:23.660 | Now we're in trouble.

00:08:26.700 | So some people marry because they've been promiscuous.

00:08:29.740 | Other people marry in order to compensate for faults.

00:08:33.040 | Sometimes they marry in order to run from perceived faults, faults that they think that

00:08:37.820 | are a part of their life.

00:08:40.860 | Some people marry because they don't have a lot of money.

00:08:47.100 | Now you ever heard that saying that says if you marry for money, you end up earning every

00:08:51.420 | penny of it?

00:08:53.900 | You do.

00:08:56.420 | And so some people get married.

00:08:57.900 | They kind of grew up in sort of a poverty situation.

00:09:00.660 | They marry somebody that has a little bit of money in order to compensate for that.

00:09:04.580 | That's why they get married.

00:09:06.280 | Other people marry in order to, well, they've been kind of shy, retiring all of their life,

00:09:12.580 | and they marry somebody gregarious.

00:09:14.900 | They marry somebody really outgoing.

00:09:16.900 | Life of the party.

00:09:17.900 | I've always wanted to be around somebody that was like that.

00:09:21.540 | Life of the party.

00:09:23.220 | Exciting to be around.

00:09:24.220 | And two or three years into marriage, they're sitting there and they're looking at that

00:09:28.580 | life of the party person, and they're saying, "Is that person ever going to sit down and

00:09:32.460 | have a serious moment at all?"

00:09:36.140 | And that person who married that shy, retiring spouse looks at them and says, "Are they ever

00:09:43.220 | going to get out and do anything at all?

00:09:45.180 | They're just going to sit there and read about life?

00:09:48.100 | Is that all they're going to do?"

00:09:51.880 | We notice that the people in marriage have not changed, but our perception of them have

00:09:56.820 | changed.

00:09:59.180 | That is, the things that drew us originally to our partners prior to marriage becomes

00:10:05.900 | their greatest weakness after marriage.

00:10:09.260 | They haven't changed, but our perception of them have changed.

00:10:13.980 | How we view them have changed.

00:10:16.900 | Initially, that was very attractive.

00:10:20.660 | Now it's not attractive at all.

00:10:22.740 | In fact, it's turned into something that's repulsive.

00:10:28.700 | So some people marry in order to compensate for faults, in order to run from them.

00:10:33.180 | Other people marry in order to realize an image.

00:10:37.380 | They've always dreamed, and I think, gentlemen, the ladies are way out in front of us here.

00:10:42.340 | By the age of six, they have their marriage planned, their wedding planned, all right?

00:10:47.820 | They know exactly what kind of dress they're going to wear.

00:10:49.980 | They know exactly who's going to stand up with them.

00:10:51.880 | They know exactly what the colors are going to be, and guys don't even think about that

00:10:55.500 | until maybe 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

00:10:59.660 | "Oh, yeah, I may get married someday."

00:11:04.100 | But in order to realize an image.

00:11:05.620 | I've always wanted to be married with a little white house, with a white picket fence, and

00:11:09.340 | the children playing so happily out front.

00:11:12.740 | I've always wanted to be like that.

00:11:15.460 | So we get married in order to realize that image, and that dream now turns into a horrid

00:11:23.380 | nightmare.

00:11:24.380 | So there are some people who marry to realize an image.

00:11:29.820 | And then there are other people marry because it's a way to legitimize sex.

00:11:33.620 | Now, I think the guys are way out in front of the gals on this one.

00:11:36.540 | "I don't have to feel guilty anymore.

00:11:38.980 | We can do this all the time, and God says it's okay.

00:11:45.200 | This is all right."

00:11:46.260 | Well, they find out it just doesn't work out that way.

00:11:52.900 | There's some people that get married in order to do that.

00:11:55.180 | Now, that's not an exhaustive list, and really when you think about it, it's really not marriage

00:12:00.900 | that's in trouble.

00:12:02.540 | It's really the people who are in marriage that's in trouble.

00:12:08.660 | Marriage is doing just fine.

00:12:11.220 | It's the people that are in it that has the problem.

00:12:16.900 | There's been a failure to apply biblical principles in order to build a good marriage once married,

00:12:21.620 | and one of the things that I want to do if I don't get anything else accomplished this

00:12:25.060 | weekend is communicate to you the central, very clear biblical principles on what is

00:12:31.460 | it that God expects in order to have a good marriage.

00:12:36.900 | And maybe find out that that's not the way that your marriage is really functioning,

00:12:43.340 | and this is where you have to turn all of your hate upon your sinful attitudes and actions

00:12:52.580 | in order for there to be real change.

00:12:56.300 | You've got to love that which is good, that is what God says is right for marriage.

00:13:05.380 | So there are a lot of people who marry for the wrong reason, and we live in a culture

00:13:11.260 | and society today that is constantly attacking marriage.

00:13:17.220 | There are several ways, and this is not an exhaustive list either.

00:13:20.200 | For example, the whole playboy philosophy actually turns people into sex objects.

00:13:26.300 | So that whole philosophy is attack upon God's institution of marriage.

00:13:32.060 | Gay and lesbian agendas are attack upon God's institution of marriage.

00:13:36.600 | God never intended any of that to be a part of this world.

00:13:40.660 | It is a very sinful, ungodly thing that undermines marriage today.

00:13:47.500 | You've got entertainment mediums, TV sitcoms, Internet, movies, radio, almost any time you

00:13:54.220 | hear marriage mentioned, it's mentioned in a negative way or it's mentioned in such a

00:13:59.500 | way that it doesn't resemble anything that God has communicated from the Bible, and even

00:14:06.540 | in some television sitcoms where you have a man and wife who are happily married, usually

00:14:11.620 | all the roles are really messed up and it's certainly not depicted the way that Scripture

00:14:19.700 | says it should be.

00:14:22.100 | Materialism, the whole focus on things, buying things.

00:14:28.660 | I need to have a house, I need to have a cabin, I need to have a boat, I've got to have this

00:14:35.500 | and that and whatever basically elevates things above people, the whole societal emphasis

00:14:44.100 | upon materialism says things are more important than people, and I'm going to acquire as many

00:14:51.060 | things to myself as I can.

00:14:54.580 | So materialism becomes an attack upon what God intended marriage to be, and then you've

00:14:59.420 | got all kinds of societal substitutes for marriage, like trial marriages, contract marriages,

00:15:06.040 | live-in lovers, people semi-married, prenuptial agreements, lat marriages, all of these are

00:15:12.860 | reconfiguring what God intended marriage to be.

00:15:19.100 | There's trial marriages.

00:15:20.100 | In other words, a lot of sociologists and psychologists are proposing that nationally

00:15:25.020 | we propose that people no longer get married for a lifetime, that should never be a part

00:15:29.620 | of their vows, they get married for a trial period of time, then at the end of that trial

00:15:34.980 | period of time, maybe two to five years, then the contract in that marriage ends and they

00:15:40.740 | decide whether or not they want to re-up the contract again.

00:15:45.060 | So let's re-up the contract at the end of that particular period of time.

00:15:50.180 | So similarly, contract marriages may go a little bit longer, maybe we'll get married

00:15:54.700 | for 10 to 20 years, raise kids, and then the contract ends, our marriage is automatically

00:15:59.540 | over according to law courts, and the kids are already raised, they're out of the house,

00:16:05.140 | they're off to college, we can choose to re-up that particular contract if we want.

00:16:11.580 | We have live-in lovers, people who are semi-married, prenuptial agreements is just an easy way

00:16:20.060 | to get out of marriage if things go sour, there shouldn't be any easy ways to get out

00:16:26.060 | of it, and prenuptial agreements basically elevates things above people anyhow.

00:16:32.060 | Now things are much more important than you are, so I want to maintain my things if we

00:16:37.740 | were ever in this marriage.

00:16:40.260 | And then you've got lat marriages, this is really popular in San Francisco, where people

00:16:47.740 | are living apart together, they have two separate homes, once in a while they go to each other's

00:16:53.020 | home and spend the night with each other, but they have two separate lives, and on paper

00:16:58.620 | and legally they're married, and they get all kinds of tax benefits from that, but these

00:17:04.580 | are lat marriages where they live in two separate locations, and yet occasionally share sex

00:17:12.780 | together, but that's it, that's it, that's all there is.

00:17:17.180 | Well, God never intended marriage to be anything like that, not even anything close to that,

00:17:23.580 | and so what has all this done?

00:17:25.540 | People marry for the wrong reason, the family is under attack in our society, almost everywhere

00:17:31.140 | you go, and the consequence is there's really a two-fold effect here, one is that a lot

00:17:36.980 | of young people today who want to get married are very unsure about marriage.

00:17:42.660 | I live in a university and college environment, I see this all the time, and most of the young

00:17:48.740 | men and women at the Master's University are very committed Christians, but you can see

00:17:56.180 | it in their eyes, here we head up part of the graduate department in counseling, so

00:18:01.980 | we got couples walking in all the time, "Hey, we just got engaged, do you do premarital

00:18:07.380 | counseling here?"

00:18:09.300 | All of these things, you can see that far off look in their eyes, are we going to become

00:18:13.940 | one of those statistics?

00:18:16.780 | We've heard about those statistics, and probably one or two of them, both of them, come out

00:18:22.140 | of homes that mom and dad divorced maybe several years before.

00:18:28.540 | They're afraid they're going to do that, but the other effect probably affects you as well.

00:18:33.940 | All that's going on here, a lot of people who are already married have lost hope.

00:18:38.340 | "We just got to stick it out until we die, so on our tombstone they'll say, 'They made

00:18:45.940 | it!

00:18:46.940 | They didn't divorce!'"

00:18:49.300 | Is that exactly what God intended?

00:18:52.620 | That's not at all what God intended.

00:18:55.780 | Just to make it, just to make it through life, that is so shallow, and that's where we have

00:19:07.660 | a lot of marriages today that are 20 miles wide and a half inch deep.

00:19:12.820 | That's not at all what God intended, and this is why I love ministering in the day and age

00:19:18.580 | in which we live.

00:19:20.460 | I think our day and age resembles the church, society, and culture of the first century

00:19:26.220 | more and more as time goes on.

00:19:29.060 | The church is growing up in the first century in a very hostile culture and environment.

00:19:34.380 | We're growing up now more and more in a very hostile culture and environment.

00:19:39.700 | I mean, I love ministry in this kind of environment.

00:19:42.180 | Why?

00:19:43.180 | Because the church of Jesus Christ has lasting answers, and we've got to get busy proclaiming

00:19:47.780 | them.

00:19:48.780 | He has lasting answers, and we've got to get busy proclaiming them.

00:19:56.940 | Now are you ready?

00:19:57.940 | Here we go.

00:19:58.940 | That's just my introduction.

00:19:59.940 | Okay?

00:20:00.940 | Here we go.

00:20:02.580 | So fasten your seatbelts and put your crash helmets on.

00:20:05.700 | Alright, what do we mean by all of this?

00:20:09.860 | Well, the first observation I want to make here is all the contemporary presuppositions

00:20:17.360 | in contrast to what God has designed out there, and when I say contemporary presuppositions,

00:20:23.060 | I'm talking about the way society views marriage today, the average American, the average person

00:20:35.500 | in Europe, in Latin America, the way they view marriage today is radically different

00:20:43.860 | than the way God intended marriage to be reviewed.

00:20:50.320 | There are a lot of secular theories out there, and most of these views and presuppositions

00:20:54.860 | go back to these particular secular theories that marriage really is a result of man's

00:20:59.980 | planning and design.

00:21:03.580 | That man was the one who actually invented marriage.

00:21:10.020 | And I have to read, try to keep up with all the secular stuff that's out there in the

00:21:16.740 | area of sociology and psychology, and all the graduate level material that's produced

00:21:22.240 | out there, reading all of this material, and the theory goes something like this.

00:21:28.660 | It's sort of an evolutionary caveman type of arrangement, that's how marriage got started.

00:21:35.220 | There were two guys in prehistoric times, we'll call one Bog and the other one Zog.

00:21:43.460 | Bog and Zog were two guys in prehistoric time.

00:21:48.820 | And one day, Bog ran into Zog, and Bog said, "Can't tell your woman from my woman."

00:22:00.860 | Zog said, "You're right, can't tell what we do."

00:22:09.900 | Bog says, "I know.

00:22:13.340 | You take your woman to nearby cave, her children will follow her, and you can have a family."

00:22:29.860 | Zog said, "Oh, sounds good.

00:22:33.620 | What's family?"

00:22:34.620 | Bog, thanks for a little bit, says, "A family where two people agree to live together, maybe

00:22:47.700 | we call it marriage."

00:22:49.940 | Zog says, "Oh, marriage, like that term, marriage."

00:22:55.900 | So Zog goes over, grabs nearby woman by hair, drags her to nearby cave, all of her children

00:23:02.820 | follow her, and now we have marriage.

00:23:06.140 | You'd say, "That is so stupid."

00:23:08.820 | But that is exactly, I mean, if you were to boil down all the complicated theories that

00:23:15.380 | are out there, and I read them, you boil them down, it boils down to that.

00:23:20.100 | That it was an arrangement that made society function a little bit better, especially in

00:23:24.660 | hunter-gatherer societies, but we live in a sophisticated world.

00:23:30.200 | We really don't need the institution of family and marriage.

00:23:34.140 | Most of the responsibilities of institution of family and marriage have been taken up

00:23:37.140 | by other groups and other society, I mean, they've sort of been institutionalized by

00:23:43.380 | governments and so on.

00:23:46.060 | The family's supposed to protect you, well, we have police forces to protect you.

00:23:50.300 | The family's supposed to provide good health for you, well, we have health institutions

00:23:56.980 | that provide good health for you.

00:23:58.940 | You really don't need these things anymore.

00:24:02.200 | These archaic arrangements where two people are getting married together and they have

00:24:07.620 | to vow a whole lifetime of agreement.

00:24:10.980 | So the implication is we don't accept that, and all of society, the United Nations, when

00:24:20.020 | you read their material on family, it doesn't have anything to do with what the Bible talks

00:24:25.260 | about in terms of family, just the opposite.

00:24:28.380 | It's any two people living under the same roof for a particular period of time, so two

00:24:33.100 | hobos in a boxcar could be called family, all right?

00:24:36.940 | It doesn't matter.

00:24:38.660 | Whoever they are, whatever the arrangement, whatever society says is okay, that's exactly

00:24:43.860 | what marriage and family is.

00:24:45.780 | Now, we live and we work in this kind of a culture.

00:24:50.700 | This is the very thing that has undermined what we think about marriage and is a cancer

00:24:56.220 | in relationship to our own individual marriages.

00:24:59.520 | Why do I say that?

00:25:00.900 | Well, because if man developed marriage, then man can redefine marriage anytime he wants.

00:25:08.620 | If man was the one who invented it, then he can destroy the concept of marriage anytime

00:25:13.940 | he wants.

00:25:14.940 | If he's the one who did it, then he has the full right to be able to redefine marriage

00:25:22.900 | any way he wishes.

00:25:26.780 | Wow.

00:25:29.080 | So there we have, that's exactly what's going on in culture today.

00:25:35.580 | But I want you to know that man did not invent marriage.

00:25:43.300 | Bog and zog are both myths.

00:25:47.140 | They're myths that come out of some kind of sociologist's idea of what marriage is supposed

00:25:52.020 | to be.

00:25:53.460 | The Bible says that God was the one who invented marriage.

00:26:00.180 | He's the one who invented it.

00:26:01.820 | Take your Bible now.

00:26:02.820 | Let's go back to Genesis chapter 1.

00:26:04.940 | We pick up in verse 26.

00:26:06.980 | Now, follow this carefully.

00:26:09.780 | Genesis 1 and verse 26, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,

00:26:17.340 | let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and

00:26:22.140 | over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps

00:26:26.300 | on the earth.'

00:26:27.380 | So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female,

00:26:33.900 | he created them."

00:26:34.900 | Now, I want you to notice something in verse 26, that there is a play here on singular

00:26:43.500 | and plural in this verse.

00:26:45.860 | There's a play on singular and plural.

00:26:48.020 | "Let us," verse 26, plural, "make man," singular, "in our," plural, "image," singular, "after

00:26:58.540 | our," plural, "likeness," singular, "and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea

00:27:05.120 | and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over

00:27:08.620 | every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

00:27:09.980 | Now, I want you to notice that there is a very significant play on singular, plural,

00:27:14.780 | singular, plural, singular, plural.

00:27:16.660 | In other words, when it says, when God says, "Let us," this is the first time God is referred

00:27:23.060 | to in relationship to plurality.

00:27:26.700 | But in this particular case, what does that mean?

00:27:30.660 | Most theologians believe this is probably the first reference to the Trinity.

00:27:33.820 | We know in chapter 1 and verse 1, it talks about God and then it talks about the Spirit

00:27:38.300 | of God moving.

00:27:39.780 | So there are two parts of the Trinity that are actually given to us here in Genesis chapter

00:27:45.660 | 1, "Let us."

00:27:46.660 | Now, it's not referring to the angels because the angels did not create, only God created.

00:27:52.620 | So it's not the angels, "Let us."

00:27:53.920 | So it's a reference to God and the plurality of God.

00:27:57.500 | So there is a sense where God says, "Let us," in plurality, "make man," singularly, "in

00:28:04.620 | our," plural, "image," singular, "in our," plural, "likeness," singular.

00:28:12.300 | Now you get the idea.

00:28:13.300 | Now, I read a THM thesis on the Hebrew terminology behind likeness and image.

00:28:19.500 | That's really interesting.

00:28:20.500 | I'll boil it down.

00:28:21.500 | So it went on for 250 pages, so I'm not going to present all that to you, but I'll boil

00:28:25.660 | it down for you.

00:28:26.660 | It's something like this.

00:28:27.660 | The guy who did it did a great job.

00:28:29.640 | He traced the Hebrew term back to Chaldean roots, and in the Chaldean roots of those

00:28:35.100 | words "image" and "likeness," the idea is this, that back during the earlier times around

00:28:42.460 | Abraham, they had terms like this, "image" and "likeness," that referred to obelisks.

00:28:48.660 | Now, we don't know usually what these obelisks are, but in ancient times, they were vitally

00:28:54.020 | important because most people didn't read and write.

00:28:56.820 | So when a king went into a territory and he conquered a territory, he would set up an

00:29:01.780 | obelisk of himself there, and it was usually at the crossroads of the territory, so that

00:29:06.780 | everybody going through that territory would look at that obelisk and say, "That king rules

00:29:12.660 | here."

00:29:13.660 | All right?

00:29:14.660 | Usually made out of stone or wood or whatever the case may be, and the implication here

00:29:19.140 | is that that king rules over this area.

00:29:22.740 | We know that because most people, only scribes, read or would write in those days.

00:29:29.580 | The average person did not do that, so they function on the basis of those images.

00:29:35.260 | Well, God picks up these terms, translates them into Hebrew, and now God says this, "I'm

00:29:43.660 | going to make man in our image, in our likeness," and notice this, immediately as soon as he

00:29:52.580 | says this, he says, "Let them have dominion," right?

00:29:58.100 | So God creates man, places him in time and space on this little blue planet out in the

00:30:07.900 | middle of the universe so that all the hosts of heaven will know that he rules here.

00:30:16.500 | He's the one who rules, because vitally connected, the image and likeness is the concept of dominion.

00:30:22.540 | Dominionship, all right?

00:30:25.780 | Vitally connected to image and likeness is the idea of dominionship and rule is the concept.

00:30:34.140 | This is really critical, especially when you consider the fact if Satan is alive and well,

00:30:39.980 | and certainly is in our world today, if he can destroy the concept of marriage in our

00:30:45.660 | society and culture today, then he has taken a mighty blow in the minds of everybody that's

00:30:54.260 | alive on earth after who God is.

00:30:58.540 | Look at verse 27.

00:30:59.860 | He says, "So God created him in his own image," now it's singular, "in the image of God he

00:31:05.620 | created them," now it talks about the plurality, "with gender distinctiveness, he creates them

00:31:13.380 | male and female, he created them."

00:31:18.740 | Now here, this is really key, this is what God has done, and the point that I'm trying

00:31:22.860 | to make is if God created marriage, then he has answers for marriage when it gets into

00:31:28.580 | trouble, which really means there's hope for your marriage.

00:31:35.940 | If God created marriage, then he has answers for marriage when it gets into trouble, which

00:31:41.300 | means there is hope for your marriage.

00:31:45.540 | If you're interested in doing things his way, things can begin to change immediately.

00:31:54.500 | This is really important.

00:31:56.640 | The marriage is given by God, and if God gave marriage, and he certainly did, that means

00:32:02.300 | he's got answers for marriage when it gets at its lowest point, when it really gets into

00:32:07.260 | trouble, he's got the answers for it.

00:32:11.180 | That tells me several things.

00:32:13.500 | Then based upon Genesis 1:27, as well as Genesis 1:31, that celibacy was never intended to

00:32:22.140 | be the norm, it's not somehow more holy to be celibate.

00:32:28.980 | That's sold to us by Roman Catholicism, but that is not biblical Christianity.

00:32:34.300 | You're not more holy by being celibate.

00:32:37.700 | That's not anything even close to that.

00:32:40.980 | God never intended that at all.

00:32:43.740 | It also tells me that marriage is not to be disparaged.

00:32:47.360 | That actually is a very holy, and it's an honorable state, and that sex and procreation

00:32:54.180 | is a part of marriage, that means that gender distinctiveness now is called, notice this

00:32:59.980 | in verse 31, not just good, but very good.

00:33:05.700 | Now that's very significant because when you read through Genesis 1 at the end of each

00:33:09.900 | day where God creates literally the universe and everything we know around us, at the end

00:33:15.660 | of each day He calls it good, He calls it good, He calls it good, He calls it good,

00:33:19.740 | He calls it good, and He gets to the sixth day, and what does He say?

00:33:25.460 | No, He says it's not good.

00:33:29.340 | It's not good.

00:33:31.000 | It's not good for man to be alone.

00:33:33.380 | I will make a helper suitable for him.

00:33:36.340 | I caught you, I know.

00:33:40.100 | Genesis 2.18, it's not good.

00:33:42.140 | It's the first time that God ever said anything was not good.

00:33:45.040 | It's not good that man be alone.

00:33:47.020 | I will make a helper suitable for him.

00:33:50.380 | God creates Eve, then what does God say?

00:33:53.340 | It's very good.

00:33:54.900 | You're scared to answer now, I know.

00:33:57.700 | Yeah, yeah.

00:33:59.260 | Now it's very good.

00:34:01.620 | Eve now, listen to this, is the crowning point of creation.

00:34:06.780 | How about that?

00:34:07.780 | Oh, man.

00:34:08.780 | I got...

00:34:09.780 | There you go.

00:34:10.780 | Listen to that, husbands.

00:34:14.620 | She's the crowning point.

00:34:16.200 | God doesn't say very good until she's created.

00:34:21.380 | She's created for Him.

00:34:24.000 | That's the idea.

00:34:25.900 | So this is really key.

00:34:28.180 | So going back to verse 31 again, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold,

00:34:33.220 | it was very good.

00:34:35.140 | And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day."

00:34:39.000 | My good German friends would say, "Gut."

00:34:41.940 | That's exactly right.

00:34:43.100 | This is very good, what God has done.

00:34:45.820 | And He doesn't say that until marriage has been established.

00:34:49.620 | Well, this tells me, furthermore, that marriage is not to compete with human options or human

00:34:56.380 | substitutes.

00:34:58.180 | God never intended marriage to compete with all kinds of substitutes.

00:35:02.020 | I think one of the biggest things, one of the biggest challenges of the Christian church

00:35:06.740 | is right around the corner.

00:35:08.300 | In the 2020s, we're not far away from it, there are companies all over the world that

00:35:13.820 | are making these, are in the process of developing these, and this is going to be the biggest

00:35:20.680 | attack on marriage that we've ever seen, ever.

00:35:25.060 | It's right around the corner, and your kids are going to face it more than you have.

00:35:28.980 | And that is, they are developing full, lifelike, robotic companions of the opposite sex.

00:35:37.380 | You can get anything that you want, any style you want, and guess what?

00:35:42.220 | They're never going to grow old.

00:35:43.900 | They're never going to have bad breath.

00:35:46.060 | They're never going to argue with you, unless you plan for them to argue with you.

00:35:50.300 | They're always going to do everything that you want, the perfect companion forever.

00:35:58.480 | Is that going to, and they will be so humanly lifelike, that it'll be hard to tell whether

00:36:09.300 | or not they're a real person or not.

00:36:11.660 | They are that close, they're that close, but you will never, ever be able to be a true

00:36:22.380 | companion with a robot.

00:36:27.060 | There's going to be a sense of getting something that we want in order to serve our lusts,

00:36:39.700 | but there's going to be a total lack of what God has intended in terms of companionship,

00:36:48.140 | and you'll see a little bit later why I'm saying that.

00:36:52.060 | Right around the corner, this is going to happen.

00:36:53.940 | Not far.

00:36:55.420 | We're training all the guys at the Master Seminary to go out and pastor churches with

00:37:00.300 | that kind of threat in mind.

00:37:02.780 | That's around the corner.

00:37:03.820 | Those guys will have to, "I'll be dead in heaven, enjoying myself there," and they're

00:37:08.660 | going to have to deal with that, all right, in their ministries.

00:37:14.700 | They're going to be sitting and people are going to be coming to their church and their

00:37:17.300 | robotic companions will be sitting right next to them.

00:37:23.400 | This is going to be a big attack upon God's institution of marriage.

00:37:29.220 | It's not far off.

00:37:31.340 | Marriage is not, never intended to compete with human options, human substitutes.

00:37:37.500 | Marriage is to be a picture of Christ's relationship to His bride, the church, and it teaches an

00:37:42.900 | important spiritual reality about God's relationship with His people.

00:37:47.680 | This is the way God describes it back in the Old Testament, with the Old Testament Jewish,

00:37:53.540 | with the Israelites, with the New Testament church, God was the husband, Israel was supposed

00:37:58.860 | to be the bride.

00:38:00.380 | In the New Testament, Christ is the groom and the church is supposed to be His bride.

00:38:06.180 | If Satan can destroy that image in destroying marriages that we have today, then people

00:38:12.340 | will have no concept of really what that means in the future.

00:38:17.300 | No concept of what God ever intended, and so you get this idea that there is a huge

00:38:26.300 | attack upon marriage today and it's going to get worse, it's not going to get any better.

00:38:34.020 | What's the original purpose of marriage?

00:38:36.300 | Well, the original purpose of marriage was not to have children.

00:38:45.380 | That was something actually invented in the Middle Ages by the Pope and Roman Catholicism

00:38:50.780 | and it was because so many of the Roman Catholic boys were dying in the Crusades in order to

00:39:01.860 | get more children.

00:39:07.060 | Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 says, "And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful

00:39:10.980 | and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish in the

00:39:14.380 | sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the

00:39:17.460 | earth.'"

00:39:18.460 | Now you understand here at this particular point, the "be fruitful and multiply" was

00:39:22.300 | a blessing.

00:39:24.720 | That was a blessing.

00:39:26.500 | But what was the real purpose behind marriage?

00:39:29.500 | What was the real purpose?

00:39:31.780 | Well, in order to understand that, you've got to go to Genesis 2:18.

00:39:36.100 | The blessing of marriage was children, but the purpose of marriage, Genesis 2:18, "Then

00:39:41.820 | the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.

00:39:47.820 | I will make a helper fit for him or suitable for him.'"

00:39:53.660 | In fact, the Hebrew terminology that's used there is the term, "I will make an ezer konigno

00:39:59.580 | for him."

00:40:00.580 | I used to call my wife my little ezer konigno.

00:40:04.660 | People thought I was saying evil things about her, but I wasn't.

00:40:11.340 | It was a term of endearment, ezer konigno, a fitting and suitable helper, one ideally

00:40:20.500 | suited for him was the idea.

00:40:24.420 | An ezer konigno is the idea.

00:40:27.180 | God's purpose in this was companionship.

00:40:30.900 | It was not good that man was alone.

00:40:34.220 | And by the way, man is headed right back to that particular point, being alone.

00:40:39.420 | Even though robotic partners are around the corner, man will be increasingly alone, increasingly

00:40:45.900 | alone.

00:40:49.020 | Man was alone, that was not good, companionship now becomes the main purpose of marriage.

00:40:55.460 | This is the way in which God designed marriage.

00:40:59.060 | And it's interesting that that is exactly the thing that goes out the window when marriage

00:41:04.420 | starts to get into trouble.

00:41:06.480 | When there's division between a husband and a wife in a marital relationship, it's the

00:41:11.580 | companionship that goes out the window first.

00:41:14.220 | You don't feel like you're a companion to them, you're upset at them, you're angry at

00:41:20.020 | them.

00:41:22.700 | Well, we can see this in verses 19 through 21, so let's read down through here.

00:41:32.300 | Genesis 2, let's start in verse 18 and we'll read down through verse 21.

00:41:37.860 | "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.'"

00:41:41.700 | Now follow this.

00:41:42.700 | "And I will make him a helper suitable for him.

00:41:46.120 | Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of

00:41:50.780 | the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

00:41:54.060 | And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

00:41:58.580 | And the man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every

00:42:03.140 | beast of the field.

00:42:04.780 | But for Adam, there was not found an Acer Canigno for him, a fitting helper.

00:42:11.860 | So the Lord God caused deep sleep to fall upon man, and while he slept, he took one

00:42:16.480 | of the ribs and clothed up its place with flesh.

00:42:21.300 | And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought

00:42:26.740 | her to the man.

00:42:27.940 | So Adam went to sleep single, woke up married."

00:42:35.260 | That's what happened to Adam.

00:42:37.460 | Now, why does he give us all this detail about these chronological events where he talks

00:42:45.780 | in verse 18 that there is no suitable helper for Adam at this point, and then Adam now

00:42:55.280 | is told to name all the beasts of the field and every bird of the heavens and whatever

00:43:04.300 | man called every living creature, that was its name?

00:43:07.420 | That's very significant, which shows you the extreme intelligence of Adam.

00:43:13.960 | Because Adam, without any recording devices or anything, and God brings him all the animals

00:43:20.820 | on earth, and he's able to name every one of them and remember every single one of their

00:43:25.940 | names, and if he named them on the basis of the typical Semitic way in which a Semitic

00:43:31.020 | mind would work, he would name the animals on the basis of their most prominent characteristics.

00:43:36.060 | So Mr. and Mrs. Elephant would be long-nosed gray creatures, and Mr. and Mrs. Skunk would

00:43:41.900 | be black and white stinky creatures, and so on and so on and so on.

00:43:46.380 | The most prominent characteristics of those animals now would become that was its name.

00:43:53.660 | So he names all the animals on the planet.

00:43:57.180 | He has nothing to record them, so this is super, super intelligence to be able to do

00:44:03.980 | this.

00:44:05.340 | All the various kinds of animals that are there.

00:44:09.340 | This is an enormous task, and he's able to do this in one 24-hour period of time.

00:44:14.940 | He's able to do this that quickly.

00:44:18.340 | But you notice this, verse 20 says, "He gave names to all the livestock and to the birds

00:44:24.100 | of the heavens, to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a suitable

00:44:29.340 | helper for him."

00:44:31.460 | Now why is that?

00:44:32.940 | Sandwiched between the end of verse 20 and the end of verse 18 is this naming the animals.

00:44:39.300 | Why is this sandwiched in between?

00:44:41.340 | Because, listen carefully, because God wanted Adam to understand that even though the world

00:44:49.360 | was full of animals, Adam was still alone.

00:44:55.940 | The dog is not man's best friend.

00:45:01.100 | Even though the world was teeming with wildlife, there was no one, no creature to be a companion

00:45:10.580 | with Adam.

00:45:14.340 | God didn't create for Adam a nice dog, He didn't create for Adam a golfing buddy or

00:45:25.260 | a fishing buddy.

00:45:27.260 | I know I've gone from preaching to meddling on that one.

00:45:30.900 | He didn't create a mother for Adam or children for Adam.

00:45:35.100 | He created a wife for Adam.

00:45:38.040 | That's very significant.

00:45:39.800 | She was the only one who could bring companionship into his life.

00:45:46.300 | In a world that was teeming with life, Adam was alone.

00:45:51.740 | Existentially, he understood that.

00:45:55.500 | Personally, he understood that.

00:45:58.720 | He was alone.

00:46:02.540 | That's really key.

00:46:05.660 | So God gave him the first anesthesia in verse 21, caused a deep sleep to fall upon him,

00:46:11.580 | which shows you, by the way, there was pain prior to the fall.

00:46:14.500 | It's just that pain now has multiplied.

00:46:17.260 | First anesthesia, put him to sleep, takes a rib, takes the rib that he had taken, forms

00:46:22.480 | the woman, and brings her to the man, and what does he do?

00:46:25.860 | He comes conscious again, "Wow, I'm married."

00:46:31.180 | He names her.

00:46:32.180 | That's what he has.

00:46:33.180 | That's what he's been doing the whole first day.

00:46:35.980 | He says to her, now follow this, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."

00:46:43.740 | Now, you kind of read over those words, but you shouldn't because the Hebrew words, the

00:46:49.780 | same Hebrew words are used one other time in the Bible, and it's used in 2 Samuel 5

00:46:54.900 | verse 1, where the people of Israel are swearing their allegiance to David as the future king

00:47:01.340 | of Israel.

00:47:02.420 | They say, "Bone of bones, flesh of flesh."

00:47:06.180 | In other words, what they were doing was they were swearing and vowing that David was going

00:47:11.900 | to be their future king.

00:47:14.980 | What is Adam doing here?

00:47:16.940 | Adam is saying to Eve, "Listen to this, bone of bones, flesh of flesh."

00:47:23.140 | In other words, this is the first marital vows.

00:47:26.740 | He's swearing his allegiance to her, which is incredibly remarkable.

00:47:32.620 | Why?

00:47:33.900 | Because Eve didn't have any other competition.

00:47:38.820 | There were no other Eves running around.

00:47:42.500 | She was the only one.

00:47:44.100 | But even with her as the only one, he swears his allegiance.

00:47:49.780 | And at that particular time, prior to sin coming into the world, they were going to

00:47:52.700 | live forever.

00:47:53.700 | So this was a forever vow.

00:47:57.860 | It was a forever vow.

00:48:00.540 | He swears his allegiance to her.

00:48:05.700 | That's what should have happened when you got married.

00:48:09.460 | You swear your allegiance to her.

00:48:13.780 | Nothing on this planet should ever break that allegiance.

00:48:18.340 | "Bone of bones, flesh of flesh.

00:48:22.900 | She shall be called," now we translate this in the English, woman.

00:48:27.940 | The Hebrew term here is Isha.

00:48:31.340 | She shall be called Isha, and what does he do?

00:48:34.660 | He names her on the basis of her most common characteristic, because the core of the Hebrew

00:48:42.380 | word Isha is the word, "She shall be called soft."

00:48:47.980 | That's the idea.

00:48:52.540 | She shall be called softy, all right?

00:48:58.260 | That's the idea.

00:48:59.260 | And I don't know whether he went up and poked her.

00:49:02.700 | Wow, soft compared to him, which is probably pretty hard and rugged.

00:49:10.460 | Men like soft, okay?

00:49:14.860 | But there are a lot of women today trying to be like men and not be soft, which denies

00:49:21.020 | their essential characteristics in terms of femininity.

00:49:24.100 | "No, no, no, no.

00:49:26.180 | She shall be called softy because she was taken out of man."

00:49:32.380 | And then he says, this really is key, so you get this idea.

00:49:36.540 | So God creates this suitable helper, a fitting completer, someone who is ideally suited for

00:49:44.780 | him.

00:49:45.780 | The animals wouldn't do.

00:49:46.780 | God didn't create a father for Adam, a mother for Adam, a child for Adam, a sister for Adam.

00:49:50.980 | A brother for Adam, a playmate for Adam, or even a golfing buddy or a hunting buddy for

00:49:56.020 | Adam.

00:49:57.020 | He created a wife for Adam.

00:49:58.020 | That's what He created because no one else would ever be able to fulfill that need of

00:50:04.700 | companionship.

00:50:07.460 | She was the one.

00:50:10.060 | She's the one who could do that.

00:50:12.840 | That's really key.

00:50:15.020 | So, then, marriage now, in verse 24, Genesis 2, 24, is described by three key things, "Therefore,

00:50:27.300 | a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become

00:50:31.700 | one flesh.

00:50:32.700 | And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed."

00:50:34.980 | I want you to understand this, that marriage now is later on referred to, Proverbs 2:17,

00:50:41.300 | Malachi 2:14, as a covenant.

00:50:43.500 | The Hebrew term there is barit, and it actually means to cut a covenant.

00:50:47.860 | That's the idea.

00:50:49.260 | Because back in ancient times, a covenant was set by taking an animal, where today,

00:50:57.460 | when we make an agreement with someone else, we sign papers.

00:50:59.900 | When you buy your house, you have to sign papers, you buy your car, you have to sign

00:51:02.700 | papers, you make an agreement, I'm going to pay this off, you sign papers.

00:51:06.180 | Back in ancient times, they didn't have any paper signing, but they would take an animal,

00:51:09.980 | and publicly, they would put that animal in front, and they would cut that animal in half,

00:51:15.220 | and the two parties would walk between the two halves of that animal, basically saying

00:51:19.920 | to everybody that was watching this, "May God do to us what has been done to this animal

00:51:28.900 | if we were to ever break this covenant."

00:51:32.360 | So that covenant was sealed in blood.

00:51:35.660 | This animal was butchered, the two parts of the animal was laid on either side, the two

00:51:40.760 | parties walked between the two parts of the animal, and everybody understood what that

00:51:45.700 | meant.

00:51:46.700 | It took that covenant to a new level.

00:51:49.820 | Blood had to be shed in order to seal that particular covenant.

00:51:54.980 | This is exactly what God intended marriage to be.

00:51:59.220 | He intended it to be a barit, not burrito, that's Mexican, a barit, all right?

00:52:09.340 | That means a covenant, a sacred covenant.

00:52:13.380 | It was considered a sacred, unbreakable bond, a lasting lifetime commitment between two

00:52:21.460 | people.

00:52:23.780 | So it becomes a covenant, and it's manifested in verse 24 in three ways, three primary ways

00:52:32.260 | that this is manifested.

00:52:34.340 | I want you to look at this carefully because this is really key.

00:52:39.420 | The first one, which really speaks to the essential unity of marriage, the first one

00:52:43.700 | is leaving.

00:52:45.420 | "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother."

00:52:50.900 | This is God's commentary on what has happened with Adam and Eve at this particular point.

00:52:56.220 | This is what God has intended.

00:52:58.380 | So we're saying this, that from the very beginning, God intended the parent-child relationship

00:53:06.380 | to be temporary, not permanent.

00:53:11.300 | Did you hear me on this?

00:53:15.940 | Temporary.

00:53:17.980 | We raised all four of our kids to leave the home, not to stay, all right?

00:53:27.100 | And when the last one left, I started chasing Janie around the house, all right?

00:53:33.340 | We raised them to leave the home.

00:53:34.980 | That's what should be happening, not to stay in the home.

00:53:38.260 | We get a lot of Christian homes today that are very child-centered, as if when the children

00:53:44.860 | leave, there's no purpose for mom and dad to stay together any longer.

00:53:50.180 | He's allowed that to happen.

00:53:51.440 | She's allowed that to happen.

00:53:53.300 | I remember several years ago, while I was still a pastor in Ohio, we had a pastor's

00:53:56.900 | fellowship group of about 15 churches.

00:53:59.740 | We got together once a month, pastors and wives, it was called a grace fellowship group.

00:54:05.180 | One day we were sitting around at a luncheon and these pastors started sharing stories

00:54:10.300 | on how people in their congregations had been married 20, 25 years and all of a sudden they

00:54:14.100 | were announcing they were getting a divorce.

00:54:16.060 | And we were all looking at each other saying, "What in the world is going on?"

00:54:20.180 | And so each one of the pastors who were sharing each one of those cases, we were asking them

00:54:23.740 | detailed questions about what was happening in the marriage and it came clear to everybody

00:54:28.140 | there that in every single case where there was a divorce occurring after 20, 25 years

00:54:36.220 | of marriage, they had homeschooled their kids.

00:54:41.220 | Now I am not talking about, don't look at me evil here, because I homeschool my kids,

00:54:47.560 | so that was not the issue.

00:54:50.400 | But what the issue was is when you do that kind of thing and you center your entire life

00:54:55.980 | around the children, it's easy to build your marriage around that.

00:55:02.540 | You can't do that.

00:55:06.580 | During the time that my wife and I still had children in the home, I would tell her, "Okay,

00:55:11.180 | this weekend we're going away.

00:55:13.540 | I'm stepping away from my responsibilities at church.

00:55:15.740 | It's just you and I going away for the weekend."

00:55:17.620 | "I can't.

00:55:18.620 | We've got so many things for the kids."

00:55:19.620 | "No, no.

00:55:20.620 | We're going to go away."

00:55:21.620 | And now we look back on that as some of the best times of our marriage.

00:55:27.440 | Because what that does is, it's not wrong to homeschool your kids, I'm not saying that,

00:55:31.820 | so stop looking at me like you want to shoot me, all right?

00:55:34.580 | It's not wrong to do that.

00:55:36.020 | What I'm saying is that it's very easy for a homeschooled family to have a child-centered

00:55:41.780 | home.

00:55:42.780 | Where the kids become the most important thing in the home, mom and dad's relationship is

00:55:46.980 | a distant second to that relationship.

00:55:51.460 | We have a lot of homes in America today that are very child-centered.

00:55:56.420 | Very child-centered.

00:55:57.420 | And the moment the last kid leaves the home, then mom and dad look at each other and they

00:56:01.060 | shake hands and say, "Wow, we did a great job.

00:56:03.660 | Thanks for your help."

00:56:04.660 | And they go two different directions.

00:56:09.120 | That's what's going on.

00:56:11.700 | You cannot allow that to happen in your home.

00:56:17.100 | The husband-wife relationship is intended to be the permanent relationship in that home.

00:56:22.020 | Children are to be reared to leave the home, not stay in the home, to leave the home.

00:56:30.580 | There was an old song years ago, maybe some of you know it.

00:56:33.620 | This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through.

00:56:36.420 | All right.

00:56:37.420 | My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

00:56:39.820 | Well, I changed that song when my kids were little.

00:56:43.500 | This house is not your home, you're just a passing through.

00:56:52.300 | Your treasures are laid up with someone beyond the blue.

00:56:59.580 | Now I have three of our four kids are married.

00:57:02.220 | We're trying to get the last one married, but there you go.

00:57:09.620 | It's the husband-wife relationship that's supposed to be the permanent relationship.

00:57:12.940 | That's what God intended.

00:57:16.800 | It's not the parent-child relationship.

00:57:20.620 | My wife was really good at saying to the family, like for example, I'd come home after a busy

00:57:27.700 | day at work, and one of the ways that she loved to demonstrate that, we would sit down

00:57:32.180 | for dinner, we would have prayer, and the first thing, she didn't let the kids touch

00:57:36.940 | anything on the table until dad was served, which was her way of saying, "He comes before

00:57:43.860 | you."

00:57:46.860 | Wow.

00:57:49.700 | He comes before you.

00:57:51.460 | When we go out to go anywhere in the car, guess what?

00:57:56.020 | I didn't run out and open the car door for the kids.

00:57:58.180 | I went out and opened the car door for the wife, and once the wife was in the car, then

00:58:03.900 | I let them in.

00:58:04.900 | I wanted them to see she came before them, year after year after year after year.

00:58:13.500 | When I see my one son who's married, I have two daughters that are married too, but I

00:58:16.860 | see my one son doing the same thing with his wife, I'm going, "This worked.

00:58:23.780 | I didn't have to teach him that.

00:58:25.700 | All I had to do was just model it for him.

00:58:28.580 | That's all I had to do."

00:58:33.420 | Parent-child relationship's temporary.

00:58:34.420 | The husband-wife relationship is intended to be permanent.

00:58:40.340 | Second thing is cleaving.

00:58:43.220 | Cleaving.

00:58:44.900 | Now this is interesting.

00:58:46.820 | In other words, the whole basis of the husband-wife relationship and the whole foundation is not,

00:58:53.860 | now fasten your seat belts, put your crash helmets on, ready?

00:58:57.580 | It's not romantic love.

00:59:01.620 | Somebody sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

00:59:04.940 | It's not.

00:59:06.860 | Hollywood has sold us a bill of fare on this thing, down through American, European culture

00:59:13.540 | has sold us a bill of fare on this.

00:59:16.780 | It's not romantic love.

00:59:19.540 | The foundation of a marital relationship has to do with a sincere commitment before God.

00:59:28.100 | The Bible doesn't say leave and love.

00:59:30.660 | It doesn't say leave and be infatuated by.

00:59:33.540 | It doesn't say leave and enter into an intense romantic relationship with.

00:59:39.100 | It says leave and cleave.

00:59:41.700 | The Hebrew word there means to be glued together.

00:59:46.980 | Leave and be glued to, right?

00:59:50.940 | Now why is that so important?

00:59:52.780 | Because it's only been relatively recent in history that you could choose who you're going

00:59:57.060 | to marry.

00:59:58.060 | Only the past couple hundred years has that happened, but a hundred years before that,

01:00:03.500 | mom and dad would usually choose who you had to marry, and guess what?

01:00:06.540 | You had to learn to love them.

01:00:08.580 | You had to learn to love them.

01:00:10.860 | Whoever mom and dad chose, that's what I was going to marry.

01:00:14.340 | Because those choices are still made in different places around the world.

01:00:17.460 | Mom and dad would choose who a son or a daughter is going to marry when they're five years

01:00:21.380 | old.

01:00:24.380 | Everybody knows it as they're growing up.

01:00:26.020 | You say, "Oh, that's so unromantic."

01:00:29.300 | Well, yeah, but I want to tell you that when the foundation of the entire marriage is based

01:00:34.900 | upon a cleaving commitment, when that's the case, that real intense romantic relationships

01:00:42.420 | grow out of that that's permanent.

01:00:46.980 | It's not based upon the vacillating feelings of human emotion.

01:00:52.060 | Not based upon that.

01:00:54.180 | A guy marries a gal, I mean, she's just gorgeous, is exactly what he's always wanted to marry

01:01:01.340 | all of his life, and five years into marriage, he wakes up in the middle of the night, rolls

01:01:06.060 | over and her hair is all tangled, she doesn't have any makeup on, and she's there.

01:01:13.900 | And all of a sudden he thinks, "Where did all the romance go?"

01:01:20.140 | And she wakes up in the middle of the night and there he is.

01:01:27.140 | And she's thinking, "What have I done?

01:01:32.620 | What have I married?

01:01:34.740 | This is horrible.

01:01:37.540 | My marriage is in trouble.

01:01:39.180 | All the feelings are gone."

01:01:41.820 | Well, that's because you've been sold this bill of goods.

01:01:45.180 | It's not based upon feelings, it's based upon a sacred commitment that you make before God

01:01:50.100 | where you glue yourself to that person for good.

01:01:56.380 | That's what it means.

01:01:57.380 | Listen, when I do premarital counseling, I catch couples in this right at the beginning.

01:02:03.540 | I give them an assignment, all right?

01:02:05.560 | So if I ever do premarital counseling for you, well, hopefully I won't because you're

01:02:10.060 | already married, but I give them an assignment early in premarital counseling.

01:02:15.420 | I say, "Okay, I want you to write out for me 20 reasons why you're marrying the person

01:02:21.780 | you're going to marry out of all the people on the planet.

01:02:23.780 | Give me 20 reasons, I mean, you should be able to do that."

01:02:27.300 | And they look at me with starry eyes and go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that.

01:02:31.060 | That's easy.

01:02:32.060 | That's easy to do."

01:02:33.060 | I go, "Okay."

01:02:34.060 | So they go off a week, they're gone a week, and they come back in and they present their

01:02:38.260 | list to me, and I start looking at their list, and they all start out the standard way.

01:02:43.420 | "Well, you know, I'm marrying him, I'm marrying her because they are just...

01:02:48.580 | I've never been so excited.

01:02:52.780 | I've never had so much intense companionship with this person."

01:02:57.740 | And after all, that's what the Bible says.

01:03:02.540 | And he's just incredibly handsome, he makes me weak in the knees, and she's incredibly

01:03:11.260 | beautiful.

01:03:12.260 | Oh, she's just gorgeous, and they're such godly people.

01:03:16.740 | I mean, we can talk into the wee hours of the morning.

01:03:19.380 | I mean, we can talk like this all the time.

01:03:21.940 | I've never been able to talk with anybody like this.

01:03:24.220 | And they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

01:03:27.300 | I can feel myself starting to get sick a little bit and all this.

01:03:34.060 | So they're going on about this, and they're just beaming and, you know, and flowers are

01:03:38.700 | growing everywhere, and all this is going on.

01:03:42.340 | All right, and all this is happening in premarital counseling.

01:03:45.860 | And I look at them and then I get really serious and I say to them, "Wow, you know what?

01:03:51.180 | On the basis of your list, I hate to tell you this, but your marriage is already in

01:03:56.260 | trouble and you're not even married yet."

01:04:00.060 | "How could you say that?

01:04:06.260 | This is my life, partner.

01:04:07.260 | You can't say that.

01:04:08.260 | You don't know anything about this."

01:04:11.580 | "Your marriage is in trouble."

01:04:12.580 | "Well, why do you think it's in trouble?"

01:04:17.580 | "Well, so let me ask you a question.

01:04:21.100 | You're marrying him because he's very handsome.

01:04:25.380 | You can talk with him like nobody else.

01:04:28.300 | He's a really godly guy.

01:04:31.140 | He loves Jesus.

01:04:34.400 | You know, he gets along with your family really, really well."

01:04:38.180 | Let's say the day after you get married, you're on your honeymoon, you're in a horrible car

01:04:43.500 | accident.

01:04:45.100 | His head goes through the front windshield of the car, the prefrontal cortex of his brain

01:04:49.380 | is caved in, his whole personality changes.

01:04:52.140 | He gets angry at God and denies Jesus, and now gets hateful.

01:04:56.900 | He is ugly now.

01:04:58.860 | He's defamed.

01:04:59.860 | Based upon the reasons why you're marrying him, your marriage is in deep trouble on day

01:05:04.460 | two.

01:05:07.980 | It's in deep trouble."

01:05:08.980 | So about this particular point in the premarital counseling, they're sucking air.

01:05:16.060 | "Well, why should we be getting married?"

01:05:20.300 | I'm glad you asked that question.

01:05:24.940 | You're marrying them because you're giving your life to them regardless of what they

01:05:34.980 | bring to the table for a lifetime, regardless of what they bring to the table.

01:05:43.660 | Now it's important that you get along.

01:05:46.700 | That's good.

01:05:47.700 | That's icing on the cake.

01:05:48.700 | That they love Jesus like you love Jesus.

01:05:51.660 | That's important too.

01:05:52.660 | That's icing on the cake too.

01:05:54.160 | That's really great.

01:05:55.160 | That has to be there.

01:05:56.160 | Otherwise, the marriage shouldn't take place.

01:05:58.740 | All of that's got to be there, but if you're marrying them for what they bring to the table

01:06:06.380 | and someday that's gone, then your entire reason for marrying them is gone.

01:06:13.500 | The only altruistic reason to marry a person is I am giving my life to you to be your husband

01:06:25.860 | or your wife for the rest of my life.

01:06:31.580 | Regardless of what you bring to the table or take off the table, that's what I'm going

01:06:34.740 | to do.

01:06:39.860 | Now they're starting to sense the seriousness of marriage.

01:06:43.880 | Now they're beginning to see it goes way beyond just merely that I feel really tingly every

01:06:51.460 | time I'm around them.

01:06:53.940 | It goes way beyond that.

01:06:58.000 | This has to do with cleaving, that the basis of their relationship is that they are gluing

01:07:05.940 | themselves to that other person for a lifetime.

01:07:09.860 | No exceptions.

01:07:10.860 | They are gluing themselves to them.

01:07:16.020 | So it means welding together.

01:07:17.420 | That's the basis of the commitment.

01:07:19.500 | The last thing has to do with one flesh.

01:07:24.380 | Now this is much more than just the physical relationship in marriage.

01:07:29.380 | It involves that.

01:07:31.360 | It is the physical relationship in marriage, the sexual relationship in marriage is an

01:07:35.180 | expression of that marriage's companionship, but it goes way beyond that.

01:07:41.980 | It means one in every sense of the word, like one in your philosophy of parenting.

01:07:48.100 | One in the way in which you use your money together because you're one.

01:07:53.100 | Your bank account should be one.

01:07:56.220 | This is how you, the very fact that you have to work through how you're going to spend

01:08:01.380 | that money.

01:08:02.380 | The very fact you have to do that, you have to harmonize your values, make you one.

01:08:09.700 | That's really critical.

01:08:13.140 | One in every sense of the term.

01:08:17.340 | Spiritually you're one.

01:08:18.500 | You view what the Bible says the same way together.

01:08:22.660 | You view Jesus Christ and love Jesus Christ together.

01:08:28.220 | Spiritually you're one.

01:08:32.380 | In all of these ways, you are weaving your life together.

01:08:38.700 | Now our culture hates this, but in the Bible it's very good.

01:08:42.620 | Have you ever seen an elderly couple that's been married several years?

01:08:46.860 | My wife and I are young ones, we've only been married 41 years, we're just young.

01:08:53.380 | But I've had people in our church, my grandfather and my grandmother was married for 75 years.

01:09:01.500 | That's a long time.

01:09:02.500 | They even got a letter from President Reagan and they celebrated their 75th.

01:09:07.300 | Of course, he was 15 and she was 13 when they got married.

01:09:15.220 | They'd be locked up today.

01:09:21.780 | But 75 years of marriage where they become so one, they've lived together so much, he

01:09:28.340 | starts a sentence, she finishes it.

01:09:32.020 | They have the same outlook on life.

01:09:33.540 | They even sound like they're talking the same way in everything that they do.

01:09:40.740 | The culture says, "Oh, you lose your individuality."

01:09:44.540 | Yes!

01:09:45.540 | Yes, you do in the oneness of that relationship, and that's not bad.

01:09:51.340 | It's a good thing because now you truly understand what companionship is.

01:09:59.140 | You understand that.

01:10:01.900 | We don't have that concept today.

01:10:07.060 | That's a very sad thing.

01:10:08.580 | So the three basic components, the leaving, the cleaving, the becoming one flesh, and

01:10:16.060 | the fact that the purpose of marriage is companionship upon those kind of principles, those are the

01:10:23.460 | basics now.

01:10:25.180 | We're going to build everything else tomorrow.

01:10:29.340 | You've been great tonight.

01:10:31.620 | So thank you.

01:10:38.340 | Let me close with a word of prayer and I'll turn it over to Pastor and he'll jump up here

01:10:43.180 | and give any kind of closing announcements that needs to take place here before you take

01:10:48.540 | off.

01:10:49.540 | Gracious Father, we are so grateful for your love and care for us.

01:10:52.540 | We know that the Word of God was given and it is clarifying in all of its details, especially

01:10:59.460 | in regards to marriage.

01:11:01.380 | It was given by you so that we could have clarity in a very confused world.

01:11:07.660 | I pray, Father, that you'll help us to gain a very solid biblical concept of what marriage

01:11:14.220 | is and then tomorrow as we talk about the husband's role in marriage, the wife's role,

01:11:19.780 | the importance of communication that complements that companionship, and then the marital union,

01:11:26.300 | which has to do with what does the Bible say about the sexual relationship in marriage.

01:11:31.820 | I pray that you'll help us to understand these things from your perspective and correct the

01:11:39.260 | areas that are wrong.

01:11:41.420 | Help us, dear Lord, to learn to hate the things that are wrong, to hate how we have dealt

01:11:48.980 | with our marriage when it is violated what the Word of God has to say.

01:11:55.460 | This we pray in Christ's name, Amen.

01:11:56.900 | Amen.

Session 1 - God's Design For Marriage

Chapters